During a news conference Monday on the ongoing investigation into allegations of grade changes at Booker T. Washington New Tech High School, Caddo Parish schools Superintendent Lamar Goree said a plan of action has been constructed for students to make up the needed credit in order to graduate.

"This is a critical step in respect that after we audited some of our students in our collaborative work with the Department of Education, we have identified 10 students from the Class of 2014 that did not meet the graduation requirements," Goree said.

Letters were mailed to the families of the students on Friday, informing them of options to make up the needed credit to correct their transcripts and be classified as Louisiana high school graduates.

"In the letters, we outlined that they will have an opportunity to meet with staff so we can develop a plan for them to obtain the necessary credit to be actually encoded as graduates," Goree said.

The first option, Goree said, will be the opportunity for students to make up any of the missed work that resulted in them not passing the class.

"This process will be supervised by a highly qualified teacher within the Caddo Parish system," he said.

A second option will be to enroll in a Caddo virtual school program. A third option, Goree said, will be to work with a highly qualified and certified teacher to provide instruction and assessment for the course recovery during the evenings or on weekends.

"And the final option, which we think is very important, is that they can do a collaboration of any of the other three options," Goree said. "They will have an opportunity to meet with district staff so that we can develop individual plans for the students."

Due to privacy laws, Caddo Schools will not release the names of affected students.

"Remember that the students are the victims in this situation," Goree said.

The Department of Education is in the process of auditing remaining student transcripts and will notify Caddo if any additional students require credit recovery.

"The Department of Education has been very cooperative with Caddo schools in this matter, ensuring that we are being as expeditious as we can in providing opportunities and declaring these students as graduates," Goree said.

In the interim, Goree also is putting in safeguards related to grade changing privileges within the district's student management system.

"We're looking at a districtwide system for addressing the changing of grades so we can make sure that we have several safeguards in place so that we don't end up in this situation again," he said.

Specifically, the district will create districtwide approval processes that will require multiple permissions before a grade will be changed.

Additionally, staff will receive additional training in the coming weeks on these new processes and procedures. Training also will be provided to all staff with access to the district's student management system.

Caddo also is in the early stages of its districtwide investigation, which Goree called as a result of concerns at Booker T. Washington.